5 Life Lessons Taught to Me By a Dying Computer

By Bonnie Ruberg

There's nothing fun about your computer dying, especially when you're a writer and you haven't backed up files in... well, never. That, as you may have guessed, is exactly what happened to me last weekend. First things started to move sluggishly. Then my laptop wouldn't shut down. When it finally did, it wouldn't turn back on. Even my Apple engineer roommate couldn't fix it. That's how I found myself curled on in a ball on the floor, frantically playing through my mind a list of all the files I'd doubtless lost. It was, in short, no fun.

However, once I'd calmed down, my roomy recovered most of my files, and I realized life was in fact not over, it occurred to me I did learn a few things from this gut-wrenching experience. Here then are the life lessons taught to me by a dying computer, shared with you in the hopes that you never have to experience the horrible feeling of laptop loss for yourselves:

5. Always, always, always back up.
It can happen to you. Seriously. And chances are, it will. I've heard the "back up" mantra countless times before, and yet somehow I was blissfully strolling through computer land believing that, for some mysterious reason, my files would always be safe. Save yourself the sheer terror of losing everything you've ever worked on and get your ass an external hard drive. Like, now.

4. Living with computer dorks is awesome.
There are lots of reasons to love tech-savvy people: they can set stuff up, they geek out adorably, they crack jokes that make you feel cooler by comparison. The greatest thing about living with two such dorks is that, when your computer is going down like the Titanic, you can curl up in a ball in the corner while they take care of everything. Then you can buy them dinner to say, "Thanks for your help, and please don't hesitate to fix everything again when this happens the next time."

3. People are sympathetic -- to a point.
Tell your friends, family, and employers that you can't do all the things you were supposed to -- send out that "thank you" card to Nana, plan someone's birthday party, actually do your work -- because your computer just up and died on you, and they'll feel bad. They might even cut you 24 hours of slack. But sooner rather than later they're going to get that instant-gratification internet itch and wonder why the heck you're not back up to speed. Just watch.

---

2. Sometimes it's nice to just start over.
It may sound bizarre, but after the initial panic of watching your laptop suffer the equivalent of a life-threatening stroke, there's something strangely peaceful about the idea of having lost it all. Gone are the emails you were supposed to respond to but never did. Gone are the articles you were working on and now we'll surely be assigned to someone else. Heck, you could start over. You have no more ties. Why not go farm beets?

1. Apple store employees aren't as handy as they seem.
When I took my laptop in for repair the morning after the horrible death scene described above -- it turns out it needed a new hard drive -- I was impressed at how quickly the guy at the Genius Bar took care of my problem. He whipped out the drive, tested it, and stuck a new one back in. I even said, "Wow, you make that look so easy." Silly me. No one is ever that competent. When I got my laptop home and started it up, it began to vibrate. It hasn't stopped since. Guess where I'm headed Friday morning bright and early? Back to the Apple Store...

Original here